'Dexter' 5.04 Preview: Meet Julia Stiles' Lumen

Julia Stiles' character on "Dexter" will start to play out in next week's episode which is called "Beauty and the Beast". We find out this week [Spoiler Alert] that one of Boyd's unkilled victims has witnessed Dexter taking the serial killer's life. She, who is none other than Stiles' character, is strangely named Lumen.

Exec producer John Goldwyn explained the choice of name in an interview with Zap2It, saying "That's just her name. I think it's Lumen Ann Pierce. I think 'lumen' is the Latin word for light. Maybe that was [writer/prod Chip Johannessen's] metaphorical thing going on with her name. It's an unusual name. The significance of that can't be lost on what's going on with her character. It's never referenced on the show. No one ever makes a point of saying anything about that."

Revealing more the significance of Lumen, Goldwyn added, "Where we go for the season is that guilt leads to atonement, and atonement finds its expression in the relationship with Lumen who comes into Dexter's life. And the way that relationship unfolds is the thing that leads to resolution because in some ways, Lumen becomes for him, a metaphor for Rita. He's able to do for Lumen, things that as the result of [Rita's] death, he could never ultimately address."

Also in the October 17 episode, Dexter finds himself in a strange situation when, instead of taking a life, he has to save one. Deb has a scary confrontation with a key suspect in the Santa Muerte murder cases. Quinn continues following up on the strange similarities between 'Kyle Butler' and Dexter Morgan.